"That's a good question. Hmmm. Okay, try this: Colby and Mapes didn't know the Russians already had the photos, so Blinsky killed Berzins and grabbed the book so he'd have a plausible explanation for how the photos came into his possession."
"I'm not sure that makes perfect sense, Bern. Thank God it doesn't have to. But getting back to Mapes. Why would he come back with the book? He'd have to know the photos were in it, and he looked completely surprised when they showed."
"That would have been a problem," I acknowledged. "He could have been planning to remove the photos, and somehow forgot that he hadn't gotten around to it yet. Or he could have been brazening it out. Remember, the photos were taped securely to the pages. You could give them a fast riffle without revealing anything. He gambled that you could, anyway. And on the off chance that it didn't work, well, he brought his gun along for backup."
"Or Colby could have put the photos in the book without telling him, Bern."
I nodded. "Much better. Colby thought he was doing Mapes a favor, and Mapes saw it as betrayal, and that's why the first person he shot was Colby. That's good, Carolyn. If they ever ask me, I'll trot that one out for them. But I don't think they will."
"So that's the story," she said. "The Russians sold the book back to Mapes. For the money in the wall safe, I suppose. And then he lost it and shot everybody, because he saw the walls closing in on him."
"And he'd have shot Marisol, too," I said, "if Wally hadn't blown out a knee and switched to martial arts. Marathon training just doesn't do much for you in close-quarters combat."
"Wally was terrific, Bern." She picked up her glass, drank deep. "And so was everything you just told me. Now tell me what really happened."
"Well," I said, "to begin with, I had the photos."
"Right."
"Of course I didn't get them until after Berzins was killed. That was on Friday, and Ray let me into the taped-up crime scene on Sunday afternoon."
"I'd forgotten that part."
"Colby never knew Berzins. I was just blowing smoke when I said he did. He knew Mapes, and after Mapes called him, asking what he knew about a bookseller named Rhodenbarr, Colby wanted to make sure the store was open. So he called, and when I picked up the phone he had the answer to his question. Then, to give himself an excuse to stop by later on, he asked for a book he already knew I had."
"Because he'd seen it in the section he always browsed. But if Colby didn't know Berzins, how did Berzins know to ask for the book?"
"He didn't."
"He didn't what? Didn't know or didn't ask?"
"Both. He knew I had something to do with the burglary-even though I didn't-and he combined positive thinking with diplomatic caution. He left his ID and his regular wallet in his parked car and came to me with nothing but ten thousand dollars and a bellyful of self-confidence. 'I believe you have something for me'-that's what he said. If I told him I didn't know what he was talking about, he'd have gone into more detail. But he didn't have to, because I was obliging enough to turn around and hand him a book."
"And he assumed the photos were in it."
"Wouldn't you?"
"I might have looked to make sure, Bern."
"Even if a fast response would let you get something for thirteen hundred bucks that you'd been prepared to pay ten thousand for?"
"That's a point."
"Then he got gunned down, and somebody picked up the book."
"And there weren't any photos in it."
"Of course not. They saw him come out of my store, and they had to assume he had the photos, because what else would he have gone there for? So they shot him and took what he was carrying, and it was nothing but a Joseph Conrad novel, and not even a first edition."
"So the Russians had the book."
"Maybe."
"Maybe? What do you mean, maybe?"
"I think there was probably a Russian behind the wheel," I said, "and another one firing the gun. But I think there was a third person in the car, and I think that person was Colby Riddle."
"In the murder car."
"That would be my guess. He looked at the book and knew right away what had happened. He took it home with him, or back to his office, and he paged through it and made absolutely sure there were no pictures in it. And then he took it to his friend Mapes's office and let Mapes look, and commiserated with Mapes about the problems they were having. 'Here,' he told Mapes. 'You might as well hang onto this goddamn thing. Call it a souvenir.' "
"And Mapes took it home?"
"And left it on the desk in his den, where I found it that very same night after I cleaned out his safe."
"And you brought it home."
"Which seemed like a mistake at the time," I said, "but I couldn't get over the surprise of finding it there. The last I'd seen of it, someone was snatching it out of a fat man's dead hands for reasons I couldn't begin to fathom. And here it was, on Mapes's desk."
"Wow. And he never knew it was gone?"
"How would he know? It was just an old book, with nothing valuable about it. He could have thrown it out in the first place. He kept it, but that didn't mean he was going to sit down and read it. He tossed it on his desk, and wouldn't have noticed it was gone unless he went looking for it."
"But he could have noticed, Bern."
"I know," I said, "and that worried me, but only a little. Because the last thing I did Monday night-although it was well into Tuesday morning by then-was drive out to Riverdale and let myself into his house for a second time."
"Through the milk chute."
"Don't remind me. It went smoother this time. Maybe I lost a pound or two, or maybe I improved with practice. I took the book along, and I'd already fixed it up, taping the photos in place. I could have just dropped it on his desk, I suppose, but I didn't want him paging idly through it, so I found a place on his shelf. The spine's dark, you don't notice it right away, but it would show up in a search. If he'd already missed it, well, that might have been tricky, but I knew I was in the clear when he came downstairs after showing his empty safe to the IRS boys. His reaction made it very clear he hadn't had a clue the money was missing. That meant he hadn't missed the book, because if he'd been aware that something had disappeared, the first thing he'd have done was check the safe to see if anything else was gone."
She took it all in, and asked a few more questions, and I did the best I could to answer them. Then she pointed out that Ray knew I'd had the photos. So how did he think they'd found their way into the book, and the book onto Mapes's shelf?
"Ray's a practical man," I said. "He's not as stupid as you think he is."
"He couldn't be, Bern, or he'd die because he forgot to breathe."
"He only thinks about things if he has to," I said. "He knows I had the photos, and if he thought about it he'd wonder how they got where they did, and how I knew they were there, and, well, any number of things. But what he wanted me to do was pull a rabbit out of a hat, and I did, and he wasn't about to ask who the rabbit's father was, or how much I paid for the hat. Instead he concentrated on the fact that he'd brought in a fellow the press is calling the Date-Rape Bandit of Murray Hill, at the same time that he was solving a crime Major Cases had yanked out from under him."
"So he came out of it okay."
"Smelling like a rose."
"I could say something," she said, "but it would reveal me as a mean-spirited human being, so I'll keep it to myself. And you know what? I'm glad Ray came out of it okay. I mean, you and I did all right, didn't we?"
"My Get Out of Dodge fund is replenished. And I've got money in the bank, and I just yesterday got a line on a carpenter who'll build me a hidey-hole every bit as good as the one Quattrone's clowns wrecked."
"And you've got a girlfriend."
"Oddly enough, I do. And I don't have to worry what she'll think when she finds out I'm a burglar, because she already knows."
"And it doesn't bother her?"
"Sooner or later it will, and sooner or later the relationship'll fall apart. But for the time being she's okay with it."